Scrutable

The BBC starts off the same:

Some 113 people have become ill with E. coli in recent weeks and experts believe it is most likely linked to a nationally distributed food item.

But then gives us more...

it is likely a contaminated batch of product that people can buy around the UK.

So now you know.

A batch of product.
And someone actually wrote that!

It's all saying the same thing.

National E. coli outbreak is thought to be a single outbreak linked to an as-yet undiscovered batch of food.

shpalman wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2024 3:05 pm food poisoning linked to food

It is called food poisoning only because the source has been assessed to be food. As the article points out, E. coli outbreaks can be arise from other kinds of sources: contamination of the water supply, contamination of bathing waters, visiting farm/zoo attractions, etc. But they would tend to produce a more localised distribution of sufferers.

It had better not be crisps.

TimW wrote: Thu Jun 06, 2024 8:36 pm It had better not be crisps.

Nah, when something like this happens often the supermarkets will drop the prices of all of that thing, even though it's safe, 'cos people are silly and stop buying the thing.

You should hope that it's crisps.

Would be funny, sorry - unfortunate, if it was vegan

I doubt it's biscuits given the number and variety I eat with impunity.

Trinucleus wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2024 3:16 pm Would be funny, sorry - unfortunate, if it was vegan

Why's that?

Trinucleus wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2024 3:16 pm Would be funny, sorry - unfortunate, if it was vegan

Your wishes have just come true!!

Vegan Wrap Pulled

A couple of other headlines:

E. Coli: 27 cases confirmed in Wales with outbreak linked to salad leaves in some supermarket sandwiches

E coli outbreak: New UK recall issued as cases rocket

:mrgreen:

MrsFF works for UKHSA. There's a lot of stuff she won't mention to me, or I come home as say "such and such is in the news", to which she tells me that she's been working on it for about 2 weeks or so... but in relation to this:

It's an interesting one as a lot of labs don't fully type the particular infection (they don't have the capacity/equipment) - so it's logged as e. coli, but not what strain. It turns out that this outbreak is from one strain of e. coli that isn't usually seen. One lab in her patch that did typing reported a surprising rise in that strain, but it took time before it was noted elsewhere. Additionally, contact tracing isn't easy. There's often a delay between event and reporting of stomach bugs and it can take time for the infected person to get to a medical person who then reports it. It was easy from the contact tracing interviews to spot that it wasn't location based (so not a bathing site, restaurant etc) but after that it gets into the detail of does a person remember everything they've eaten for the last 72+ hours. It's highly stereotypical, but data bears it out, that the other thing that often crops up with food-bourn stomach bugs is a particular gender skew - mainly male, then meat/bbq food is highly likely to be the cause; mainly female and the likely cause is salad. But this outbreak appears not to have a large gender bias either way. This means it takes time to sift through potentially unreliable memories from hundreds of people across the country to try and spot potential causes and get them tested. There were a lot of people, particularly on Twitter/X, who seemed to think this should all be solved in a matter of hours, or at least a couple of days. It's much more complicated than that (and you'd be surprised by the small number of staff they have).

Nero wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2024 8:23 am

Trinucleus wrote: Fri Jun 14, 2024 3:16 pm Would be funny, sorry - unfortunate, if it was vegan

Your wishes have just come true!!

Vegan Wrap Pulled

Pulled Vegan Wrap? I'll stick to Pulled Pork... Vegans aren't very tasty.

In this case it may be rocket science

Gfamily wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2024 4:37 pm In this case it may be rocket science

Yep, Liz Truss's legacy, for a "summer without salad".